Greetings and Salutations!

Welcome to my humble corner of the interwebs.  This is my first blog (and first blog post), so please kindly bear with me.

For my own amusement, I'm working on a Swords & Sorcery-themed 1st Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons homebrew, partly inspired by this excellent thread, and running my players through classic D&D adventures.  I've tweaked the 1st Ed AD&D engine to make it faster (with combat encounters generally lasting ten minutes or less, fifteen on the outside) and to make it not require a battle mat.  To make it feel more Swords & Sorcery, I've made the power curve flatter.  To increase verisimilitude, I've removed gamist restrictions (e.g., clerics, thieves and magic-users can use all weapons and armor).  

However, I'm also borrowing the things I like from other editions as well: using a slightly modified version of the general modifier table from BECMI, making the cleric is more like the OD&D version by increasing combat power and decreasing spell power, using an armor-by-piece system like Oriental Adventures, etc.

Default assumptions (as of today):

• Keep the basic building blocks of the engine: classes, relatively abstract combat (e.g., hp, THAC0), saving throws
• Focus on rulings, rather than rules
• Remove the mechanical bits that are IMHO overly complex or decrease verisimilitude
• Streamline and unify the mechanics somewhat
• Streamline the equipment to increase verisimilitude
• Focus on the PCs as a small tactical unit, so no retainers or hirelings
• Flatten the power curve: 
• PCs start as competent professionals and lower levels are more survivable 
• A much smaller power disparity between lower levels and higher levels
• Use an Iron Age setting rather than Medieval 
• Shift genre from High Fantasy to Swords & Sorcery (e.g., grim & gritty, PCs are explicitly self-interested scoundrels, not heroes)
• Although niche protection is diminished because gamist class restrictions are removed, classes still have clear strengths and roles:
• Fighters- infantry
• Clerics- strategic reserve/special operations
• Thieves- cavalry
• Magic-users- artillery

Please note that the above is merely my opinion as to what I personally find interesting.  It goes without saying that YMMV, and all that jazz.

Also, the homebrew is a work in progress, so the above may change or expand a bit going forward.

Next up: Campaign background!